


A first time for everything

by sonictrowel



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Episode: 2010 Xmas A Christmas Carol, Episode: 2011 Xmas The Doctor the Widow and the Wardrobe, Episode: s05e13 The Big Bang, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Mild Sexual Content, Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-20 07:45:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13142181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonictrowel/pseuds/sonictrowel
Summary: “Could you do it?  Could you do this?  Think about it, Doctor.  One last day with your beloved.  Which day would you choose?”





	1. A Christmas Song

_“Could you do it?  Could you do this?  Think about it, Doctor.  One last day with your beloved.  Which day would you choose?”_

 

The Doctor scowled down at the console.  He’d dropped Amy and Rory back to their wedding night, promising them no further attempts at a honeymoon outing.  Honestly, he didn’t know what they were making such a fuss about.  He’d been in loads of spaceship crashes; even died in one.  Ships that didn’t hit the ground didn’t even rate on the list.

Well, so much for having company to distract him.  The party was still going, though!  Back here on the night of the 26th of June, when the universe was brand new again… He could just pop back in right after they’d left.  Right after…

 _“No, but was that yes, or_ yes?”

_“Yes.”_

A shiver went down the Doctor’s spine.  

He wasn’t an idiot.  Well— that was beside the point.  He wasn’t actually _that_ thick.  He had no illusions anymore about who, precisely, River Song was—would be— to him.  But…

_“Could you do it?”_

That was the thing.  He wasn’t at all sure he could.

Kazran had stayed away from Abigail for his whole life, trying to save her last day.  Trying to hang on to that last little piece of her; to the final crumb of happiness left to him.  And someday, years or decades or centuries from now, the Doctor would find himself doing the same.  There was no point in denying it any longer.  The road before him was clear, and no matter how desperately he tried to escape down every branching trail and winding side-path to avoid it, he only wound up back there again, running inexorably toward his future.  Toward River, walking up to meet him.

It would all be different if he could just take her hand and they could run together.  But instead, one day, they’d pass each other by.

How was he supposed to live with that?  To look forward to every moment they would spend together, when any one could be the last?  How was he supposed to, to let himself… _love_ her, when he’d already lost her?  Already, some unseen clock was ticking, counting down their days.

And here he was, always at a careful distance, spending them.

_Wasting them._

Suddenly spurred into action, the Doctor dashed around the console.  Best not to join the celebration again when he was still there the first time, but he _could_ still pick up the temporal trace of a departing Vortex manipulator in the immediate vicinity...  And- _ahah!  There!_

He cranked the throttle and the TARDIS brakes wheezed and then fell silent.  He burst out of the doors the moment she’d landed, before he had a chance to think and talk himself out of it.  

River was standing on the steps of a terraced house in front of him, her arm half-raised to knock as she glanced back over her shoulder.

“Sweetie,” she greeted him warmly, smiling as she turned to face him, “you’re on time for supper!  Surely that qualifies as a Christmas miracle.”

“It’s Christmas again, is it?”  The Doctor stopped at the foot of the steps.  “Excellent.  You know— I did think you were dressed rather warmly for June.”

River’s eyes widened immediately, her smile fading.  “Doctor— did you follow me?”

“Well… a, a bit.  Not, sort of, immediately, though.  Took a couple of detours first.  There was the Orient Express in space, and then Amy and Rory wanted a proper honeymoon destination, but that sort of went pear-shaped a bit with the storms and the fish—”

“Oh, no,” she sighed, raising her hand to her forehead, and this was not at all the reception he’d been hoping for.  “You shouldn’t be here.”

“W— and why not?  And for that matter, where _is_ here?” he demanded, taking a first glance about and trying not to dwell on his rapidly bruising ego.  “Feels dull.  Must be Leadworth.  What are _you_ doing in Leadworth?”

River exhaled, frowning, and strode purposefully down the steps, grasping his hand as she passed him on the pavement and towing him back to the TARDIS.  The Doctor made a wordless sound of protest, but stumbled helplessly after her.

She released her grip on his hand as she made for the door, but no— he was here tonight for a reason, and he wasn’t going to let her slip through his fingers, not again.  He held on, pulling her gently toward him.

“Doctor,” she chided breathlessly.  Oh, so that surprised her.  He liked that.  He decided to press his luck, and as she turned to face him, he moved boldly into her space.  Her back pressed against the TARDIS door.

Her lips parted silently; her brow furrowed as her shining eyes met his.  The chill wind swept a loose curl across her face, and he carefully reached up to brush it aside and tuck it behind her ear.

“Doctor,” she repeated, softly.

“River,” he murmured.  “Did I ever tell you about Kazran and Abigail?”

She nodded slightly.

“She knew," he said.  "She knew all along that time was counting down, with every Christmas Eve.”

Her expression was unreadable, even this close.  “And she chose to make the most of the time they had together.”

“Even though it wasn’t enough?” he whispered, searching the calm, clear green of her eyes.  Her hand was soft and warm in his.

“Oh, sweetie.”  She smiled, but she looked so sad, his hearts gave a painful squeeze in his chest.  “How much time could ever be enough?  There’s no such thing.”

They were drifting closer still together.  Hearts pounding, the Doctor nervously licked his lips, and River’s gaze lowered to his mouth and held there.  Right, then.  

Geronimo.

“No, _don’t!”_

He froze, millimetres from her beautiful, cringing face.

“Oh.”  He stepped back and dropped her hand, cheeks burning and a peculiar, heavy feeling of loss settling in his stomach.  “I’m sorry, I, I, I’ve gotten very much the wrong end of… something, haven’t I.”  

“Oh, Doctor,” River sighed.  She looked so utterly miserable he suddenly wanted to hug her, but… well, maybe that would also be much less welcome than he’d so recently thought.  His brain was rapidly recalculating with this new information, and he deeply disliked each new solution more than the last.  

“It’s not your fault,” she said, hugging her own arms around her middle, looking suddenly small in her big coat.  “I’m sorry.  You’ve no idea…”

“No, I, er, I thought I did— in fact, I thought you had rather heavily implied that you… that _we_ … well.”  His mind was still recalibrating: flirting very much yes; facing deadly danger together with a cheeky smile, yes; knowing his every deepest, darkest secret, yes; looking at him like he’d hung the stars or sometimes like she wanted to devour him, or, best of all, both— yes… Kissing, and all the other terrifying intimacies it implied, no.  

That lead weight in his gut was getting heavier.  

“I guess,” he stammered, “I’ve gotten it all a bit, ah...”

“No, I know, I—” she shook her head, eyes screwed shut and lips pressed into a line as if she were physically shutting herself up.  “God, no wonder you were so surprised,” she muttered, letting out a bitter breath of laughter.  But when she looked at him again her eyes were bright with tears.

“River...”  She looked gutted.  This was so very much not how he’d wanted it to go.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.  “I can’t tell you anything to make this better.  But will you do something for me anyway, Doctor?”

He watched her expectantly, fighting the pull to move closer to her again.

“This is spoilers,” she said, smiling another one of those infinitely sad smiles, “so I really shouldn’t, but…  Someday, there’s a bit with a pyramid.  You’ll… know the one.  Sometime after that, come back here for Christmas, won’t you?”

“Well, I _am_ here now.”  He hated when she looked at him like that— like he wasn’t _him_ enough; like he still wasn’t finished.  

“I know, sweetie,” she whispered, reaching out to straighten his bow tie.  He swallowed.  “I’m sorry.  It isn’t your fault, it’s... you’ll understand soon.  But if you would come back tonight,” her voice wavered and the desire to hold her was positively _choking_ him, “it would mean a lot to me.”

“Alright,” he said hoarsely.  “I guess you’ll, ah, see me in a bit, then.”

She finally stepped away from the TARDIS, slipping past him to walk back up the steps to the house.  In the sudden lack of her presence, he shivered.

“Um, happy Christmas, I suppose,” the Doctor mumbled, as he opened the TARDIS door.

“Doctor,” she called after him, and he turned back, hope instantly buoying him again.

River gave him another hearts-breaking smile as she opened the door to the house without knocking.  “You know what they say.”

“What?” he asked, raising his outspread hands in supplication before dropping them back to his sides.

She disappeared into the house without another word.  The Doctor shook his head as he retreated into the TARDIS.

What had he been _thinking_ , anyway?  Letting himself get caught up in the romance of imagining that she… that _they_ … He really knew nothing about her, though, did he?  What had moments ago seemed an inevitability had somehow been a terrible error in judgment.  He smacked the heel of his palm against his forehead and groaned as he leaned over the console.  

That was stupid, _dangerous_ , to even think he should open himself up to her like that when he didn’t really know that he could trust her.  And it _hurt_ to think that he couldn’t, after all they’d done.  But that was stupid of him too.  Stupid, stupid, idiot Doctor.  There was a reason he didn’t do this sort of thing.  

But he had just thought… it was River.  He’d thought she was different.  Unique in all the universe.  The keeper of his name.  And, if the ache in his chest was any indication, of other things he hadn’t quite meant to give her, yet.  Not if they actually weren’t…

He engaged the throttle with more force than necessary, earning a hum of annoyance from the TARDIS as they lurched into the Vortex.  A lump in his throat, he stomped up the stairs leading to the corridor to his room, pausing to kick a wall with a shout of frustration.  This time, the TARDIS allowed his tantrum without complaint.

 


	2. The Caretaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the moment she heard the front door open, her hearts were pounding in her ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hadn't planned on changing the rating but... sometimes these things just happen. 0:)

From the moment she heard the front door open, her hearts were pounding in her ears.  Lying in the dark in the bedroom her parents had set up for her, she tried to listen through her racing pulse to catch the timbre of his voice, but there was only silence.  Minutes passed while River curled her knees up to her chest and wiped the tears from her face, waiting.

Finally, she heard Rory’s voice coming nearer.  “I’d better check the turkey,” he said, before his steps shuffled away from the front hall.

“Is your daughter at home?”  Adrenaline shot through her as the Doctor’s quiet question echoed up the staircase.  “I need to have a word.”

“She got here half an hour ago and went straight up to her room.  You wouldn’t have had anything to do with that too, would you?” Amy asked, in a distinctly threatening tone.

“Well, I… might have done.  It wasn’t my fault this time, though!  Honestly!  It wasn’t anyone’s,” the Doctor said, sounding low and forlorn at the end.

“You’d better go and fix it, in any case,” Amy declared.  “It’s Christmas.  I expect you both at the table at seven, and if you absolutely must shag before dinner, at least tell her to keep it down—”

 _“Amy!”_ the Doctor sputtered, scandalised.  River smiled for the first time since she’d fled a younger version of her husband on the front steps.

“Off you go,” Amy ordered, undeterred, and her footsteps retreated toward the kitchen.

This Doctor obviously knew all of the creaky stairs and floorboards in her parents’ home.  River heard nothing until yellow light from the corridor flooded in, casting his shadow in the doorframe across the far wall.

“How did Mummy take it?” she asked, her light tone somewhat compromised by her scratchy throat.

The door clicked shut, leaving her in darkness again, and then Doctor lifted the covers, slipping into bed behind her.  The relief that instantly flooded her body was dizzying.

“Well, lucky for me, she was only armed with a water pistol,” he said, cosying up to her back and slipping an arm beneath her.  “And it probably helped that _someone_ had already told them I was alive.  Clever of you, making sure I’d come back here tonight.”

“I’m always clever,” River said, trying to stifle a shudder as the Doctor brushed aside her hair and pressed his face into her skin.  “Though I must admit, that was not my primary motive.”

“I know,” he mumbled, and kissed her neck.  “I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” she whispered, twining her fingers through his.

“You did what you had to do.  I was— I was awful.  When I saw you next, I was cruel to you.  I didn’t understand, but I shouldn’t have…”  He shook his head.  “I’m sorry, River.”

“Water under the bridge, sweetie.”

River turned over to face him and he hugged her tight.  Every time, she was terrified it would be the last.  But he came.  He did always come when she called.  She had at least one more Christmas to spend with her husband, the one who knew and loved and trusted her.  With her whole family together.

“There’s been a lot of that today,” he said, and before she could ask what he meant, he leaned back and brushed his finger over her cheek, wiping away a tear.  River stiffened and ducked her head.  

She didn’t cry in front of the Doctor, not when she was the older one.  She didn’t show it, and he didn’t notice.  That was their unspoken arrangement.  Bad enough he’d come from their honeymoon period, when they were both relatively young and in the easiest, happiest days of their back-to-front romance, to meet her now: old and insecure, surely moving closer by the minute to their inevitable end.  She couldn’t show him any of that.  He didn’t like endings.

“Being humany’s not so bad, you know,” he said.  “Not when we’re together.”  She finally looked up to see tears in his eyes too, and a soft smile on his lips.

“No,” she agreed, her voice trembling a little as she slowly let herself relax into him again.  “Not so bad.”

He kissed her, tender and slow.  Warmth and gratitude and desperate love pulsed through her, and as hot tears filled her eyes again, River gave up on holding anything back, just for tonight.  

“Now, do you think you can be quiet for me, dear?” the Doctor murmured against her lips.  “I don’t fancy being humiliated by your mother or murdered by your father tonight.”

“Not sure you can avoid the former,” she gasped, while his warm hands began to wander.  “She’ll know anyway.”

“Then for you, honey, I’ll suffer through it.”

River smiled.  “How noble of you, Doctor.”

“Still, best keep quiet.”  He had slid her knickers down far enough for her to kick them off, and was pushing her dress up past her hips.

“I’ll try,” she whispered, and was immediately tested when his mouth moved to her throat and his fingers slipped between her thighs.  She bit her lip and breathed through her nose.

“Good girl,” he mumbled into her neck, and she barely suppressed a whimper.

Somehow, the Doctor knew exactly what she needed.  Or maybe they both needed it tonight: just to be close, to make the most of one of the good days, when they both knew what they had in each other.  They made love slowly, and he didn’t try to hide the tears that fell onto her cheeks as he kissed her.  He whispered in her ear just as he’d once done, so long ago, when he lay dying on the steps beneath her.  She stifled a sob into his shoulder as she surrendered to bliss, safe and warm in his arms.

—

River was quite sure that no one was fooled when they came down to dinner, hand in hand.  The Doctor was as radiant as she felt, and the soft look in his eyes whenever they met hers made her hearts flutter madly.  Surely they were both too old and had seen and suffered far too much to be this hopelessly, foolishly besotted.

Her parents both seemed pleased at the obvious improvement in her mood, and Amy spared them any commentary on the method of its improvement in favour of a toast to their family, all together once again.

The Doctor swallowed and looked down at the table, glassy-eyed, and River squeezed his hand.

“Any plans for Boxing Day?” she asked her parents as they tucked into their meal.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Amy said, sharing a knowing glance with Rory.  “Been waiting for somethin’ interesting to turn up.”

“Yeah,” Rory agreed, “I’d better come up with an excuse soon, or I’ll have to follow my dad round the shops looking at every dancing Santa Claus and inflatable reindeer on offer.”

“Wouldn’t want to subject you to that,” River replied indulgently.  “I, as it happens, am entirely free.  Well, aside from the bit where I’m technically imprisoned, but they won’t miss me.  Never do.  How about you, sweetie?”

“W-what?” the Doctor sputtered, frowning at her, eyes wide.  “River, of course, I—”

“—Have you got any plans for tomorrow?” she clarified, gently.

“Oh.”  He flushed endearingly, before glancing around the table to see all expectant eyes on him.   _“Oh.”_

“Well?” River pressed.

“A-are you sure?” he asked, looking to Amy and Rory.

Amy snorted.  “It’s been two years, you moron.  About time you got us out of this rubbish village.”

“Definitely overdue for a little ridiculous space action,” Rory agreed.

“All of us?” the Doctor asked quietly, meeting River’s gaze again.

“Wouldn’t miss it for anything, sweetie,” she said, watching as her own smile was mirrored on his lovely face.

“Well, okay!” he said, finally adopting a degree of his usual enthusiasm.  “An all-Pond adventure is just what we need!  Any requests?”

“Doctor,” Amy groaned, “when has that _ever_ worked?”

“Maybe if we aim for the planet of man-eating mice, or something, we’ll end up somewhere completely pleasant instead,” Rory suggested.

“Now, now, I think you two are forgetting something,” River interjected over the Doctor’s protestations.

“Yeah?” Amy asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m driving, obviously.”

“Oh, well, that’s alright then,” said Rory.

“Oi!” the Doctor gesticulated with his fork while Amy dissolved into laughter, “I’ve only been flying her for a thousand years!  I think I know what I’m doing!”

“Bless,” River said, and leaned over to kiss him before he could object.  He flailed only momentarily before surrendering, his fork clattering to the table and his hands tangling in her hair.

“...Yeah,” Rory said after a few moments, clearing his throat, “I’ll, um, go get some more wine.”

“Right behind you,” Amy said, as their chairs scraped across the floor.

Face flushed and hearts impossibly full, River pulled back to properly take in her husband’s giddy grin.

It was true: they knew all along, one of these days would be the last.  So she’d make the most of every one.

 


End file.
